B2B Sales Whitepaper Examples

What is a whitepaper?

A whitepaper is a detailed, solution-oriented piece of long-form content designed to explore a specific topic, often one that’s complex or misunderstood. It’s especially common in B2B marketing, where buyers want more substance before making a decision.

Whitepapers aren’t about hype. They’re about helping potential customers understand their challenges, evaluate their options, and walk away with a clear next step. Done right, a whitepaper can shape how someone sees a problem—and make your solution the obvious choice.

You’ll see whitepapers most often in technical or regulated industries like healthcare, cybersecurity, and enterprise SaaS. In these spaces, buyers expect deeper insights and want to see your methodology, supporting data, and subject matter expertise laid out in a digestible way.

Why do whitepapers matter in B2B marketing?

In B2B marketing, whitepapers are foundational. They’re flexible assets that can support nearly every part of your marketing strategy—from lead generation and SEO to sales enablement and customer onboarding.

Because whitepapers are in-depth, they appeal to decision-makers who need to understand the full context of a problem. They’re also perfect for reaching audiences doing self-serve research: someone in a startup leadership role, a nonprofit evaluating a CRM, or an IT leader scanning vendor options. These folks need more than a sales deck—they want substance.

Whitepapers can also be repurposed. A single asset can fuel blog posts, social graphics, infographics, case studies, or a webinar. You can even use the research to pitch a podcast interview or executive byline. And when you pair your whitepaper with Dock, you can embed it into a custom workspace alongside a proposal, landing page, and other assets that support the customer journey.

What is a marketing whitepaper?

A marketing whitepaper is designed to attract and convert leads. It's usually built around one major pain point, backed by industry data, and capped off with a compelling call to action. While it may touch on your product, it’s rarely a hard sell.

Think of a marketing whitepaper as a bridge between awareness and evaluation. It gives your target audience something valuable, and in return, you earn their time, attention, and possibly even their contact information through gated content.

Smart content marketers also optimize marketing whitepapers for SEO, formatting them with a table of contents, well-labeled headers, and phrases aligned with what their audience is actually searching for. This way, the content drives value both in the moment and long-term via organic traffic.

Types of whitepapers

Not all whitepapers are created equal. Each serves a different purpose depending on where the buyer is in the funnel and who you're talking to:

1. Problem-solution whitepapers: These whitepapers dive deep into a common issue facing your target audience, then walk through how your product or approach solves it. They’re great for demand gen, especially when promoted on LinkedIn or through email marketing collateral.
2. Technical whitepapers: These are often written for engineers, developers, or IT leaders. They focus less on business outcomes and more on how your product works—think architecture diagrams, methodologies, security protocols, etc.
3. Thought leadership whitepapers: Built to establish your brand as a thought leader, these pieces don’t necessarily talk about your product at all. Instead, they share a point of view on where the industry is heading—ideal for building trust early in the buyer journey.
4. Comparison whitepapers: These line up your product next to alternatives, highlighting differentiators. Back up your claims with real-world proof like success stories, testimonials, or case studies.
5. Lead-generating whitepapers: These are the downloadable assets often featured on landing pages or promoted via social media. The focus is on volume—using whitepaper templates to create scalable, SEO-optimized content that brings in new names.

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